my max is 195 so 60%-70% is 117-136,pretty much where I spent 5.5 hours on Sunday,not on purpose but because I was nursing a mate for 3 hours of that.Would be good to visit a coach and get a training schedule,from friends who have they do seem to spend a lot of time in those lower zones.But I do always put it off thinking that being 20kilos overweight I should lose that 1st before bothering!.

From my recent reading, staying in the 60-70 zone for a good portion of your exercise time trains your body to burn fat rather than Glycogen. This is good for weight loss, and also gives you endurance as you maximise your ability/efficiency at pulling out fat for energy rather than Gly.

I'd bought a book a few years ago called the "Lance Armstrong Performance Program" which has a seven week training program (I'm sure most of you have seen this book). Earlier in the year I decided to get a HRM and have a go at the Intermediate version of this program.

The first thing I noticed was how slow I had to travel to keep my HR low enough to maintain an aerobic training session. I felt like these sessions were a waste of time...but at the same time I was arriving home with a smile on my face since I was actually enjoying the riding and watching the scenery roll by for a change. Some of the other sessions involving high cadence riding, sprints etc were HARD but I still felt that the aerobic sessions were kind of pointless.

And now to point of my post...after the fifth week I began to notice that I had lost a bit of weight. When I started the program I weighed 84kg. At the end of the seven weeks I tipped the scales at 76kg, a weight that I have maintained for the rest of the year. Was the training program a "success"? Depends on your definition, but even if I'm not fitter I'm just happy to lose the extra 8kg...and this I attribute to the long, slow (60-70% max HR), and I guess fat burning, aerobic sessions.

As an added bonus I've learnt not to go out and wreck myself every time I get on the bike. Sometimes it's not "all about the bike" (thanks Lance)